Fiber optic modules interface optical fibers to electronic circuitry transducing communication by light or photons with communication by electrical signals. A fiber optic module may be a fiber optic receiver, transmitter or transceiver including both receive and transmit functions. The fiber optic receiver, transmitter and transceiver each have optical elements (OE) and electrical elements (EE). The fiber optic transmitter OE includes an emitter (such as a semiconductor LED or Laser) mounted in a package and an optical coupling element for coupling light or photons from the OE into the optical fiber. The type of semiconductor laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) may be a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). The fiber optic receiver OE includes a photodetector (such as a photodiode) mounted in a package and an optical coupling element for coupling light or photons from the optical fiber into the photodetector. The EE for each includes integrated circuits, other active elements and passive elements mounted on a substrate such as a printed circuit board (PCB) or ceramic. The OE and EE are connected electrically at the emitter and photodetector.
Because many of the optical elements of fiber optic modules use plastic materials, the optical elements can not tolerate the high temperatures experienced during wave soldering. Thus, wave soldering of the fiber optic module printed circuit boards must be done before the optical elements are mounted to the printed circuit board. After wave soldering, the optical-elements are then mounted to the printed circuit board in a separate manufacturing step. The additional step thereby increases manufacturing costs. It is desirable to reduce manufacturing costs of fiber optic modules by reducing the number of manufacturing steps. It is desirable to wave solder fiber optic module printed circuit boards without necessitating separate manufacturing steps to mount the optical transmitters and optical receivers.
A new standard referred to as the Hot pluggable Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) has recently been introduced for fiber optic modules. The details of this new standard are set forth in SFF Committee Proposed Specification for GBIC (Gigabit Interface Converter), Rev. 5.4, Aug. 16, 1999, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. However, because GBICs are of a relatively large size, end users desire a more compact, high throughput fiber optic transceivers. Particularly, end users desire a GBIC in a small form pluggable (SFP), LC package. It is desirable to package the functions of a GBIC into the compact size of an SFP, LC package.
As end users become ever more reliant on digital optical network communication systems, short interruptions in fiber optic devices become more serious service problems. Thus a need exists to minimize down time of fiber optic modules by allowing the hot replacement of fiber optic modules, the optical elements, and/or the electrical elements of fiber optic modules.
Moreover, It is desirable to improve upon the prior art.